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[Miileexx]

Can anyone give me tips for descending into the desert mines?

[Ryika]

Bombs, and Coffee, and Food, and RNG, and Starcases for annoying/monster levels.

There isn't really much more than that. Lay bombs where there are large clusters of stones, and try to avoid combat with enemies as much as you can since that mostly just costs you time.

Ignore ores and gems that aren't clustered.

Don't forget that you can open the menu to stop time. It's often useful to do that when you enter a new floor, since that gives your brain a moment to process the information and allows you to make the best decision on where to move towards.

[BCD]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Bombs, and Coffee, and Food, and RNG, and Starcases for annoying/monster levels.

Pretty much this. I never cared for going too deep into the mines, but my gear is the galaxy sword (or lava katana if you still don't have a prismatic shard), about as many mega bombs as I could craft supplemented by a smaller numbers of normal and cherry bombs, a few staircases, triple shot espresso and spicy eel for buff and some 20 salads for healing.
You should take note of the desert trader. He trades espresso for diamonds, spicy eel for ruby and, on sundays, staircases for jade. He also offers bombs and, for 3 omni geodes, a desert totem, which you can use to start mining before Pam gets to the bus. You can also buy a farm totem from the casino for 500 qi coins if you want to warp home.
Like I said, I'm not a skull cave expert, but I managed to get to level 100 like this and obtained way more iridium than I needed. It's not so difficult.

[abbi]

lol the skull cavern elevator mod....

[BCD]

Originally posted by red255:

So couple things.
I tried crystallariums on quartz and just found it tedious.

Why? Did you need to collect the quartz too often?

Originally posted by red255:

you can get spicy eel from lava eel fish ponds and drops off the monsters.

I mostly get mine from the trader. Maybe (almost certainly) this is just rng, but in my last save I wound up with over 20 rubies just sitting in a chest, right next to tens of spicy eels obtained through a variety of methods.
Lava eel ponds are very good and they're worth having, but upgrading them can be a ♥♥♥♥♥. I think the second thing they need to expand their capacity (after 3 fire quartz) is either basalt or dwarf scroll III, neither of which can be reliably obtained without a lot of time in the mines and rng's blessing. Furthermore, spicy eels only have a chance to spawn once there are 9 fish in the pond, and then they still have to compete with everything else. The wiki puts the odds for this to happen at 4%. It will occur, sure, but it doesn't strike me as a very good method for getting this dish. Rubies seem way better.

[Sicicada]

Another thing you may want to consider is your luck. The luckier you are the more likely to find stairs and pit holes to speed things up in beginning to middle to reach 100

[BCD]

Originally posted by red255:

you can also empty the fish pond and move it to generate a new roll if its an issue. not sure if you remove one fish and then move it, it also works.

I did that, once. It can help, and the 3 fire quartz are fairly negligible, but it still takes plenty of time for the missions (both missions, in fact) to pop up again. Also you could roll the same thing again, which I would find very irritating. Still better than sitting on that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dwarf scroll though.

I must admit I honestly didn't know geode minerals could be replicated in crystallariums. Crystallariums are something I could never be bothered to mess with, though I know they are very much worth the trouble. I always kept my farms kinda modest, and didn't need the whole shed's worth of crystallariums you sometimes see people make. Really, for the most part I was content with just the one you get from the safe bundle, though I did make another one to get jade for staircases. I should remember crystallariums exist, I suppose.

Regardless of all that, I still think rubies are better. The time question is worth bringing up again. How long will it take you to get a fish pond with 9 lava eels in it? Depending on what you invest in and how efficiently you play, you can have one up in a relatively short time. In my experience though (my own, personal experience), it's well after I unlock the skull cave.

Maybe you rush the lava eel pond, maybe you play that much more efficiently than me, but as I understand the game relying on the lava eels means putting off going into the skull cave with that excellent +1 luck +1 speed buff. Besides, rubies aren't that rare, and they can even go into that machine I actively ignore, allowing you to reliably get the spicy eels when you need them instead of waiting for that 4% chance.

[BCD]

Fair enough. I can imagine 5 full ponds would suffice to obtain a sufficient supply of spicy eels. However, the last time I unlocked the desert I did it by the start of winter. I suspect winter is a pretty good time to start going into the skull cave too, cause you don't have crops to distract you from it.

[MISFORTUNE]

make 100 staircases

[natshely]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fswDQSFA1eo

[SKY]

Haz escaleras de piedras, bombas, comida, y mucha suerte